Celebrating Life in Rafah
"By the time 40 Palestinians were killed in Rafah, 39 others were born" |
Rafah, Jenin, Khan Yunis, Zeitun: Foreign sounding names of so distanced and disturbing a reality. All that we know of them is what media has selectively determined to impart, if we are interested to hear the story.
The Rafah refugee camp, a small strip of land at the southern edge of Gaza was the target of Israel's most ruthless attack in years. Between May 17-20, forty three Palestinians were killed, mostly civilians. Among them, nine children, most who were struck by missiles while protesting peacefully with flags and banners: "End the Siege on Rafah", declared a white banner, torn and saturated with blood.
Various media reported: Israel was responding to the killing of 13 of its troops at the hands of Palestinian militants.
Homemade landmines killed the Israeli soldiers. However, the blasts were exasperated by the large amounts of explosives hauled by Israeli armored vehicles, apparently on their way to blow up some Palestinian homes somewhere in Gaza.
Even before the Rafah atrocities subsided, US President George W. Bush told AIPAC lobbyists that Israel had the right to defend itself.
Can logic be any more fallacious?
Israel's murder of civilians is sanctioned as self-defense; Palestinians, once again are labeled "terrorists".
Israel can assassinate any Palestinian at the time of its choosing with a ready-to-serve verdict. It killed and wounded hundreds of civilians in those "targeted killing" sprees. Yet, Palestinians are condemned if they show the mere desire to respond. Even the targeting of occupation soldiers is taboo.
So what is it that Palestinians are permitted to do in self-defense, in accordance with the so twisted pro-Israeli Bush doctrine?
How about marching in a peaceful demonstration?
In Rafah, that too was an anathema and could not be tolerated. It was handled with resoluteness and vigor, the same way any "terrorist" threat deserves to be handled. A missile fired from a US-supplied Apache helicopter was all that took to eliminate that option of resistance.
"Photos below are too graphic", read a warning posted on a Palestinian website of images of dead civilians in the tragedy-stricken refugee camp. They were of the dozen bodies piled up in a local farmer's cooler since the hospital's morgue was overfilled with victims.
One picture refuses to escape my mind. An olive-skinned child with slightly opened eyes. Dead. An unknown hand, holds the child's wholly disjoined arm closer to the dead body, as if he is telling the camera: "this arm belonged here." The boy was nameless. I quivered. The feeling of being that boy's father is horrifying.
In the case of Israeli victims of suicide bombings, reality can be equally gruesome. But Bush dares not use the same logic when Palestinians fall victim: "Palestinians too entail the right to defend themselves. " Never once has he uttered these words.
So what else should Palestinians attempt, now that even peaceful protests are crossing the line?
Peter Hansen, the chief of the United Nations agency for refugees in the region confirmed that in Rafah refugee camp, homes were toppled on their dwellers.
Even as Hansen himself walked through the camp assessing the damages, Israeli soldiers were still shooting. "We have now confirmation from the hospital that a girl was shot and killed in one of the two gun bursts we heard," he said.
She was Rawan Abu Zeid, a 3-year-old girl from Rafah. Her peers said that she was skipping in her way to the candy store. Two bullets struck her, one in the head and the other in the neck. Was she taken to the same makeshift morgue, or did her tiny body find room for itself in the local hospital?
This time I implore an answer: what must Palestinians do to stand up to the Israeli occupation menace without being blamed for their own misery, now that suicide bombings, fighting occupation soldiers, protesting peacefully, huddling in fear with one's family in one's own home, or coveting a piece of candy from a nearby shop warrant so violent an Israeli response?
Of course we are expected to pay little attention to the Palestinian victims, to ask who are they and who will pay for their death. In fact, few of us bother to find out what can be done to help those fortunate enough to evade the bullets and the bulldozers.
But enthusiastically we indulge in analyzing Ariel Sharon's motives, as if such senseless murder might possibly adhere to some kind of logic.
Is it blatant revenge that compelled the killings? Is it another campaign of ethnic cleansing of areas adjacent to the border with Egypt to establish yet another Israeli "security zone"? Is it a round of muscle flexing, such as South Lebanon's defeat complex, prior to a partial pullout from Gaza?
Whatever his reasons might be, the fact is, Sharon will not cease his murdering of Palestinians with impunity. His logic, however twisted, will prevail as long as the United States government continues to supply him with all the weapons, money and political clout needed to defy international law. His victims will maintain their status among the "unimportant people", and shall be reprimanded if they even dare to vent violently, because by doing so they veer off from the teachings of Ghandi and Martin Luther King.
In a few days, the name Rafah shall concede to make room for more important headlines. It might be a few more days before another foreign sounding Palestinian name, associated with tragedy and death is introduced, and with it a long list of Israeli pretences, coupled by a quote or two made by president Bush somewhere on his fundraising trail: "Israel has the right to defend itself."
The chances are, the Rafah morgues shall be emptied and dusty yellow bulldozers shall remove the debris of over 230 destroyed homes. Whose morgue shall be filled next is hard to predict.
As for the refugees of the devastated camp meanwhile, left alone atop the debris of their homes, scores of death certificates and hundreds of wounded to care for, they, astonishingly have a way to cope. For one, they insist that there are millions of people around the world who care about them. Someone chanting for their rights and freedom anywhere in the world feeds them with urgently needed hope for one more day.
Speaking to Gaza's Voice of Freedom Radio, Moawiya Hassanein, a physician in Gaza city told the station that by the time 40 Palestinians were killed in Rafah, 39 others were born. I am "so happy because the births were some compensation for the human loss," he said.
A Palestinian friend of mine, who is living far away from home, told me today that as she witnessed the images of the victims of Rafah, she felt a strange and overpowering sense of pride. She said "If I had not been born Palestinian, I would've wished to be." I understood, and I too felt the same.
Ramzy Baroud is a Palestinian-American journalist and editor-in-chief of The Palestine Chronicle online newspaper. He is the editor of the anthology: "Searching Jenin: Eyewitness Accounts of the Israeli Invasion." Baroud is also a researcher for the Qatar-based al-Jazeera Net English.
To buy "Searching Jenin: Eyewitness Accounts of the Israeli Invasion" CLICK HERE
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Jazakallahu khairan!
I know many of you think the West and the Americans capitulate readily to Israel, but I think a lot of people are misinformed about the situation (I know I was). If we could spread the truth about what was going on, educate the masses about the situation, protest (peacefully, mind you)and demonstrate things could be changed.
Peace to you all
Please don't compare a bigot to a donkey. A donkey may kick and fart but not for a good reason. On the other hand, a donkey is kind, serves its master with immense patience, eats whatever is given and take a close look at any donkey when it is not busy. All it does is put its head peacefully in a corner and seemingly meditate. It is a great site to watch a donkey in such a peaceful state. Besides a donkey is a beautiful animal externally too.
I would never compare a bigot with a donkey. By far a donkey is much more useful to society than a bigot - its use may have dwindled in modern day society with cars and other forms of transport BUT with the price of oil and huge consumption that confronts us today, we may very well go back to our docile friends for help anyday soon. I can't see anyone wanting to befriend a bigot though.
Peace be upon all.
As to your presumption that I would try to find a peaceful solution to the conflict in Palestine, I must say I have it, I didn't invent it myself, it's around for a while: Two sovereign states, with internationally defined borders on the armistice of 1967, with Jerusalem as an international city run by UN with a status very similar to that of Vatican. I must disagree with you saying that both sides are to blame, but neither can submit. To what my friend? The Palestinians to the Israelis? Palestinians don't owe submission but to God. So do the Israelis, I guess, in their own way. That's why I believe that the world alone should come up with the solutions and compensations and everybody should respect that. Israel, like a well trained whore, persuaded USA in declaring the UN as irrelevent since they were not serving Israeli interests. There is Israel to blame, the one and only. She has the power to end all hostilities in a no time. She transformed the greatest nation of the world in her poodle. She tried with others too, you should see who and how many times vetoed decissions against Israel. Then tell me who's guilty!
If the people in the Middle East want to ultimately defeat the Zionist crusade they have to learn the techniques that the Jews use to gain financial power and influence. Then they will exert the same power to use against the zionists.
One such example of innovative thinking is the creation of a Cola drink by Arabic business men. And it has been very successful, where a portion of the profits go towards charitable causes like helping palestine. You need more people like this to succeed. Then the arabs will be on the same playing field of financial influence.
Here is a free lesson in the history of that land and you could find out more if your own one-eyed attitude could allow you.
Israel was created from the loin of Palestinian lands by illegal force, without any consultaiton with the indeginous people of the land whose homes and farms were confiscated by force to be occupied by Jews from all over the world. Jews who had no link with the land other than their religion. Jews who for all the rcords show were converts from the Kazars to the Falshas of Africa.
During this planned take-over, some 750,000 Palestinians were driven away from their homes. That was more than 50 years ago. Today these refugess and their decendants number into 3 million at the least. They have no right of return. Some still carry the keys/deeds to their homes. Home that are now occupied by Jews. That would make you proud offcourse.
Needless to say that during these 50+ years, numerous villages with Arab names were destroyed totally and whatever was a good real estate was given to Jews. The rest wiped from the face of the earth just as massacres of Deir Yasin and other ethnic cleansing that still goes on.
All with the belssing of American governments and your tax-paid dollars.
Such people by the way have not been given any right to defend their lives or properties. No court. No justice. No restrations. No comensation. no reparation. Nothing. Zilch. Only subjugation and humility to add to their exisiting plight.
You dumb idiot. Put yourslef in their shoes and see how would you behave? and why can't the IDF just get the hell out of the occupied teritories? Why do they insist in ruling another by force even in their own homes.
On your comment, I don't like your tone! If you pact with the Israeli Zionist dogs, there is no place for you on this website. This website is for the benifit of Muslims worldwide and for those non-Muslims that have a genuine urge to understand their plight and analyze together the sources of all these tribulations. This site is not a propaganda tool and therefore such alienated comments from the reality like yours, serve one purpose: to spread venom and hate and provoke the Muslims in to a futile argument with a nitwit like yourself. Listen to what you say:"civilians are used to protect as shields the killers within." There are no killers. There are Palestinian freedom fighters that fight and die for their homeland. The killers are the Israeli Army which indiscriminately shoot rockets in the crowds of peaceful demonstrators. Are you watching the news, did you read the article? Are you mentally debilitated or what on earth is your problem? It is like the sun is up and you would say,'no it is the moon', did you think that the Muslims were like your brainwashed Jesus Christ Halleluya born again Israel supporters?! Pay attention! You do too many gaffes!
Your comment:"How many IDF forces killed before Israelis went into the camp to root out the killers? Tunnels for smuggling found? No balence, ever, in what Ramsey ever says." The answer is simple, 13 Israeli dogs versus 40 innocent Palestinians mainly children. Or from the beginning? It is like 900 dogs versus 4000 Palestinian innocent civilians. I totally aggree with you, no balance whatsoever! How could the life of a dog equal that of ten innocent people? Never, you must aggree on that, don't you, Fried?
Shalom Kelev!
and its terrorist allys must be stopped Insha Allah. The
terrorsit ring leader bush and his followers are the
biggest hypocrytes and terrorists in the world. May
Allah be pleased with those who do righteous good
deeds and help others Insha Allah.